It’s been a while since we did an update to the blog; sorry about that, we have been spending almost all our time trying to fill orders for the Dual Axis Rotor System, or working on future products.

One nagging issue I have been wanting to resolve is the Voltage Monitor’s value does not always match the true input voltage; depending on the controller.  I designed 1 percent resistors in the voltage sense and input circuitry but that does not seem to be good enough in all cases resulting in wrong voltage values being displayed and acted upon by the firmware.

A new version of firmware revision 1.7X is now on the firmware page.  The reported voltage calibration value is now changeable and is not cleared using either a Full or Partial Reset operation.  All new systems shipped with the 1.7X firmware will have the calibration done, but an upgrade to 1.7X firmware in the field will require you to verify and possibly change the value.  The calibration process is easy and only needs to be done once.

To check or change the value unplug the power cable from the Hand Controller and measure the DC voltage from the power source; inside of the barrel connector is positive.  Reattach the power cable and power on the unit.  Once initialized, hold all 3 buttons down just like before to read the voltage.  Now you are offered the choice to “Ca” for Calibrate, so push the CW button for “Ca”.  Use the “CCW” and “CW” buttons to move the displayed voltage up or down to match the measured value.  Pressing the “Ex” or “Mode” button will save the new calibration data to flash memory.

We also added a few improvements to the motor start algorithm, giving the motor more milliseconds time to start.  This will help in performing the Sensor Calibration operation and hopefully not have as many stalls as previous releases.  Basically, if the processor does not detect motor movement after a certain amount of time, it thinks the motor is stalled or jammed and powers down the drivers, causing the movement to fail, and ultimately the motor controller to time out causing the calibration to fail.  This update should help alleviate that issue and fortunately, this operation only needs to be done if you do a Full System Reset.

As with other firmware upgrades, both the Hand Controller and Motor Controller will need to be updated to the 1.7x revision.